Italian financial police said they stopped the rapper at the Lamezia Terme airport in Calabria on Saturday with U.S.$422,000 in cash, well above the limit that can legally be transported across EU borders undeclared. The incident comes less than a week after Snoop Dogg was briefly stopped in Sweden on suspicion of drug use after a concert near Stockholm.

Financial police confirmed a report by the Italian news agency ANSA that half of the cash was impounded under Italian anti-money laundering codes. In such cases, the balance is returned minus any fine set by magistrates.

Travellers within the European Union are required to declare 10,000 euros ($11,000) or more in cash.

Snoop Dogg played in Calabria Friday night, and is scheduled to perform Sunday at the Kendal Calling Festival in England.

Last weekend in Sweden, the rapper was questioned and tested for suspected drug use north of the capital. Authorities said test results would not be available for some time.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/news/snoop-dogg-found-carrying-422000-in-cash-when-stopped-by-italian-airport-police-has-half-impounded/feed0stdSweden_Snoop_Dogg1Dave Bidini: Yellowknife may be a small city, but it has a big newspaperhttp://news.nationalpost.com/arts/dave-bidini-yellowknife-is-a-small-town-with-a-big-newspaper
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/dave-bidini-yellowknife-is-a-small-town-with-a-big-newspaper#commentsSat, 01 Aug 2015 14:09:49 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=847019

The Northwest Territories’ young capital of Yellowknife — the 81-year-old mining town founded in 1934 after the discovery of gold by E.A. Blakeney — ain’t what it used to be.

There’s the Internet, strip bars and hotels, and yet parts of the city still feel like you’re stepping out of time. Home to the Dene people as well as Canadians from everywhere, you’re never more than 300 kilometres away from the oldest rock formation on Earth and places where the First Nations have lived since beyond imagination.

Southwest of the city — and 40 minutes by plane — in the Deh Cho region, you can stand in the Nahanni National Park below endless ranges and towering cliffsides missed by glaciers. Great Slave Lake and the Mackenzie River both evoke ancient histories of an ancient land, and if lingering on a dock in busy Muskoka is one thing, standing on the shoreline of the Slave is to fade toward an eternal sense of place.

This sense of a lost time has also come to me through experiences writing for the twice-weekly Yellowknifer, the city’s thriving, and long-standing, local press. The Yellowknifer is such a throwback newsboys and newsgirls still hawk the paper on city corners.

“We sell at 75 cents a pop, and give the kids a quarter for every paper sold,” says managing editor Bruce Valpy, a transplanted former playwright from Saint John, N.B.

The printing press, a hulking blue colossus that roars when running, lies a few doors beyond the newsroom. The paper is found in every variety store and shopping depot in town; copies linger in diners, gas stations and restaurants. Yellowknifers rely on it to tell them about themselves, to say nothing of breaking stories from the north through the 20 territorial titles with names like the Inuvik Drum and the Kivaaliq News, all run on the same press and produced by a 14-member newsroom, with writers filing from around the territories.

NNSL file photo Undated Yellowknifer press room in the early days. The newspaper started on a kitchen table in Jack Sigvaldason's house. It then expanded to a 416-square foot office without running water. The only source of electricity was a single extension cord connected to a building two lots away.

The reporters, many of them young, are from everywhere, having bounced through small-town papers before being hired here. They file at least two stories a day and every inch of it is local. Carrying on a tradition established in 1972 by the paper’s founder, J.W. “Sig” Sigvaldson, the Yellowknifer runs no wire copy and almost no stories about the world at large.

Rather, it focuses on the city, treating the global news’ sharescape as if it never existed. The Yellowknifer is not available online outside its paywall. When I mention the anomalous nature of this and the fact no one from elsewhere can read what is being written, Valpy says, “F–k elsewhere. We’re a Yellowknife paper.”

This long-standing posture comes with its strengths — locals rely on the paper for its dedicated voice and commitment to serving them — as well as a few weaknesses. Former writers lamented not being able to tweet stories and when a huge world story breaks, the Yellowknifer won’t automatically address it, not even in a local context.

“There are South African people living here and when Nelson Mandela died, I thought it might be good to get a few quotes from them,” says the paper’s fine crime reporter, John McFadden.

“But even that was beyond what the Yellowknifer does. It can be frustrating at times, but, then again, there’s never a shortage of things to cover. A lot of people think the north is this boring place where nothing happens. But read the paper: we can’t keep up with half the stories. It’s not dull working here.”

Credit: YellowkniferRecent front page of the Yellowknifer newspaper.

Karen K. Ho, who used to work for the paper you’re reading now, was looking around at other smallish publications, but the Yellowknifer was the only one where she was hired to write full-time about business news. Evan French, from Burlington, Ont., says at his old paper in Niagara Falls, he was required to “practically write and lay out 92 pages per week by myself,” while here he’s developing stories in the versimillitude of a big-city newsroom.

In Toronto, says Ho, “you’d have to chase people to comment on stories and run the gauntlet of access. But in a town this size, it’s hard to escape the press. People answer their calls and you see everyone around town, anyway.” She adds, “it’s the first and only time I’ve been recognized for something I’ve written. That feeling is kind of special.”

Because many of the writers come from away, a few were hired without being extensively interviewed. Some were never interviewed at all and, one former writer, Cody Punter, was hired one night in a bar.

One of the reasons for this, says Valpy, is that, “if you want to commit to coming and dedicating your writing to Yellowknife, it proves that you want to be here. That’s good enough for me.” He also has a policy that, if someone local wants to contribute, “I’d never stand in their way. Ever.”

In an era of downsizing and cost awareness, the Yellowknifer sustains a busy newsforce, at the expense, perhaps, of old computers and no digital mandate. When I ask publisher Mike Scott about his dream for the paper’s future he says, “Ideally, I’d like to start a publication in Cambridge Bay.” That he says this without irony is incredible, if a little alien to anyone working in an industry where a digital platform is the vanguard.

McFadden, a former broadcaster and reporter from Peterborough, Ont., who has worked extensively in Toronto, has met his own challenges while covering the police and courts in Yellowknife.

The authorities have been threatened by his doggedness. On one occasion, he was wrestled to the ground outside a courtroom by a security guard, who may have taken exception to McFadden publishing the name of a known rapist who was a threat to the community (the incident and McFadden’s rights as a journalist were later explored on Canadaland).

“There is no police services board here, so the forces seem to have free range,” says McFadden.

“It’s one of the trials of working in the north, but after all of this went down, the RCMP ended up changing their policy. I was ripped up pretty bad, but at least something got done.”

Things got worse for McFadden a few weeks ago, when he was thrown in jail for allegedly obstructing justice — photographing a van that was being torn apart by police outside a bar where reporters like to drink.

Charges were laid and the paper moved slowly to defend its crime reporter, which surprised some people who see the Yellowknifer as their civic watchdog.

No matter how you view these encounters, a showdown looms between the paper and the cops. They are the sole media conscience in a small city, a reputation they’ve maintained for over five decades.

As the city grows and changes — controversial housing developments and the uncertain nature of the mining industry affect what it is and what it will become — the Yellowknifer, like all papers, must work to stay relevant. And so, every Tuesday and Thursday night, a sound pushes its way from the back of the building into the newsroom: another sheaf of newsprint being fed off the spindles; the sound of papers being made.

The rivalry between former Degrassi resident rapper Drake and Philadelphia bad boy Meek Mill has kept the hip hop beef game strong this July. But why all the bad blood? Below we trace the evolution of the war of words, starting from the bottom:

August 2014: Anaconda

More specifically, the bottom of singer/hip hop first lady Nicki Minaj whose controversial video for single “Anaconda” featured a lap dance for her good pal.

December 2014 – May 2015: A Love Story

Meek Mill is released from prison and begins courting Minaj. By March the two are officially dating and rumoured to be engaged.

–

June 29, 2015: Rap BFFs

Meek Mill releases his album Dreams Worth More Than Money. Lead single “R.I.C.O.” features a guest verse from Drake.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgRrxFsX538&w=640&h=390]

–

July 21, 2015: Rap Beefs

Mill goes on a Twitter rant calling Drake out for using a ghostwriter for his “R.I.C.O.” verse. Smelling a beef brew, the media gets excited. Meek apologizes to Minaj, saying at a concert “I wanna give a special apology shout-out to Nicki Minaj for my crazy ass going crazy on Twitter.”

Stop comparing drake to me too…. He don't write his own raps! That's why he ain't tweet my album because we found out! 😁

The youngest member of the Kardashian clan, 17-year-old Kylie Jenner, is throwing an 18th birthday bash at Olivier Primeau’s Beachclub in Montreal, a party island complete with a beach, pool and plenty of flowing booze.

The legal drinking age in Quebec is 18, making it an ideal locale for Jenner, who has the world as an option for a party destination.

Having graduated high school early this summer after being “home-schooled” and taking classes three to four hours a day, the socialite is looking to celebrate. The Canadian bash will go down Aug. 16, just a week after her birthday on August 10, and will include “special guests and special surprises.” The event is open to the public, if, of course, you’re over 18, and will be deejayed by Bynon and Whoo Kid.

Andrew AMJ, Beachclub’s marketing director, confirmed the club reached out to Jenner to help her take advantage of Canada’s drinking age: “We have a premiere destination and wanted to offer Kylie the legal opportunity to celebrate in style.”

While the club wouldn’t confirm a price tag, according to TMZ, Jenner will be paid somewhere between $100,000-200,000 just for showing up, which she reportedly will via helicopter landing at the lake by the club, where a luxury boat will then bring her directly to her table, stocked with alcohol and a $3,000 cake.

Peter J. Thompson/National PostKylie Jenner poses with fans on the red carpet at the Much Music Video Awards in Toronto, June 15, 2014.

Typically, celebrities can earn big money just for showing up at a club. Sister Kim Kardashian is a top-earner for appearances, collecting over $500,000 for birthday parties the year she turned 30.

Beachclub is North America’s largest outdoor club, having recently undergone $2.5 million in renovations, and includes terraces, cabanas, luxury beds and multiple bars. It boasts a history of A-list DJs and celebrities performing and making appearances, including Tiesto, Hardwell and Dan Bilzerian.

Jenner is already living in her own $2.7 million mansion in Calabasas, Los Angeles. She recently came under fire for dating 25-year-old rapper Tyga.

Older sister Khloe Kardashian told Complex Magazine earlier this month that she’s just being Kylie: “Kylie might be 17, but from what Kylie has been through and the life she lives, she’s not a normal 17-year-old. You’re not gonna say, ‘Hey, so what are you doing this weekend?’ and have her say, ‘Having a slumber party at my girlfriend’s,’ or ‘Going to prom.’ That’s not what Kylie does. …Kylie is taking business meetings and bought her first house, or she’s going on a private plane with Karl Lagerfeld to take a meeting. That’s not even what people do in their 30s. It’s a rare circumstance, so let’s treat this as a special case.”

Saskatoon-born “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, who trash talked his way to the main event of the first WrestleMania and later found movie stardom, has died. He was 61.

The WWE posted on its website that Piper, whose real name is Roderick Toombs, died on Friday, but there was no immediate word on the cause of death.

Piper was the second WWE Hall of Famer to die this summer following the June death of Dusty Rhodes. Piper’s death also comes days after Hulk Hogan, his biggest rival for decades, was fired by the WWE. Hogan had used racial slurs in a conversation captured on a sex tape.

Piper was born in Saskatoon and rose to prominence in the 1980s, battling the likes of Hulk Hogan in what was then the World Wrestling Federation.

WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon described Piper as one of the most “entertaining, controversial and bombastic performers ever in WWE.”

Bill Olive/Getty ImagesFormer professional wrestler "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, second from left, died July 31, 2015, reportedly of natural causes, at his home in Hollywood, California.

Some of the other big names from pro-wrestling in the 80s were tweeting their condolences and paying tribute on Friday.

“Sad to hear about Roddy Piper. He once worked 91 nights w/out a day off. WWE wouldn’t be what it is today w/out him. Wonderful athlete & friend,” tweeted former Minnesota governor Jesse Ventura, who was one of Piper’s contemporaries.

“I am shocked and saddened to hear of Roddy Piper’s passing. He was one of a kind and one of the all time greats,” said wrestling star Steve Austin in a post on Twitter.

“I love you forever, god bless you bubba,” tweeted the Iron Sheik.

“I am so sad to tweet that my friend Roddy Piper passed away last night. He was really such a sweet man. My heart is with his family,” tweeted singer Cyndi Lauper, who made frequent appearances in wrestling shows in the 80s and 90s.

Piper’s family moved around the Prairies in his youth and he became involved in wrestling at the age of 15 in Winnipeg.

Piper turned pro in the late 70s and eventually moved to Los Angeles where he became involved in what is now World Wrestling Entertainment making a name for himself in high profile bouts with the likes of Hulk Hogan and Mr. T.

In a 2011 profile of Jon Stewart — really one of the first not explicitly right-wing things to cover Stewart in a way that was anything other than hagiography, which is mildly incredible when you consider he’d been doing his Daily Show thing for 12 years — Tom Junod came up with the Jon Stewart Game. It’s relatively simple: “start telling his story and see how long it takes you to compare him to someone he should feel really uncomfortable being compared to.” Junod’s example ends with Edward R. Murrow, or at least a New York Times piece that compared Stewart to Murrow.

Stewart has always been relatively quick to downplay these kinds of comparisons — he would not be our Jon, after all, if he was eager to put on airs, not possessing such a resolute modesty that it’s not so much false as delusional. But partly because of this, (and maybe partly because his audience has always been younger and less familiar with the inevitable crumbling of monuments, and also because every age involves a certain desperate flailing for heroes and we can only really talk about that kind of infallibility by referencing a smoothed and partially imagined past) they still cling to him.

As he approaches his retirement, these comparisons have started to take the form not of historical comparisons but of contemporaries he has bested, the crooked timber he towers over, straight and true. Sometimes it’s literal, like that time he stuffed Tucker Carlson’s bow tie so far down his throat it emerged as a tail that the blowhard’s own network promptly stuffed between his legs. More often it’s sort of vague and wistful, alluding to the crisis of trust that affects anchors caught lying or presidents caught in an inevitable compromise, a crisis that has never so much as spotted our Jon.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aFQFB5YpDZE&w=640&h=390]

It’s in these kinds of comparisons where Stewart’s usual squishy disavowal of power and responsibility — that he is, first and foremost, a comedian — actually seems most relevant, even if it isn’t quite the defence he wants it to be. Our Jon can remain untouched precisely because he is hermetically sealed from the kind of disappointment that we can tag those actual figures of responsibility with, because the only way he can truly let us down, by his own often-repeated standards, is by not being funny.

You only have to look at Canada’s own meek mainstream satire to understand that to pull off something with the reach and consistency and pointedness of Stewart’s Daily Show takes some serious doing, but it’s still an intellectual cheat that his fans indulge all too often. Even if we accept that there’s inherent value to standing on the sidelines throwing rocks, we can’t really turn around and praise the man doing it for never getting bruised. Stewart has the analyst’s privilege of never having to compromise to keep the gears turning, and the smart aleck’s armour against his own flaws, that we’re all broken, ridiculous things, and he at least has the honesty to thumb the cracks. It’s fine to praise Mark Twain’s clarity of vision — and Stewart himself has evoked that particular comparison — but we still can’t judge him by the standards of Lincoln, or for that matter Grant or Cleveland or McKinley. That’s at least part of why the recent furor over his White House visits seems so misplaced: surely no one believes he was actually strictly non-partisan, but it’s at least a little uncomfortable for a satirist to be breaking bread in the halls of power.

For a man who has made a nearly iconic career out of picking apart hypocrisy, he has not always been so careful about monitoring it in himself

If this is mostly a problem for moony-eyed undergrads and not particularly self-analytical progressives, though, Stewart himself isn’t entirely above playing in this gray area, almost always on his own terms. Taking a flamethrower to Crossfire is still the most memorable, the first time when he decided that humour wasn’t actually the best-suited weapon for his point, the time when he specifically refused to be a monkey right after he defended himself against accusations of frivolity by explaining that he followed puppets making prank calls. He also lead a political rally that stealthily evolved beyond parody, finished with the very serious Jon making his very serious points, and then retreating into his shell of being a comedian whenever the people who must play (and fall down) by different rules insist that maybe sometimes they should apply to him, too.

Which isn’t to say that critics can’t also write books, just that they don’t get to choose their identities as they please, don’t get to remain above the fray and still kick down into it. His comedy as much as his grand proclamations attest to the fact that he is a sharp observer who has valuable things to say, when he is not hiding behind the jokes that he makes a shield. But for a man who has made a nearly iconic career out of picking apart hypocrisy, he has not always been so careful about monitoring it in himself.

Brad Barket / The Associated Press filesThe next day clip round-ups for Stewart and his growing stable of spin-offs, though, rarely lead with "Watch The Daily Show change your mind about [something]."

Surely, by now, this is partly because he has never really had to. As much as being funny, his real talent has been for remaining liked, for picking his spots to stand up and slouch back. In the most uncharitable terms, it’s for playing to his audience, for carefully invoking their clapter, as Seth Myers (not exactly one of our most incisive media critics) so perfectly put it. However deftly he can explode them, our Jon only swings hard at the softest of targets, the Fox Newses and Jim Cramers, the people and institutions that elicit the “I can’t evens” from his supporters — one of his go-to jokes, after all, is the dumbfounded stare, the extended pause that suggests there just are no words.

Maybe it’s just that the things for which words are required, the subtle and malleable and tricky things, don’t make for quite as good comedy; maybe it’s just that every choir needs a preacher. The next day clip round-ups for Stewart and his growing stable of spin-offs, though, rarely lead with “Watch The Daily Show change your mind about [something].” It would be fair to say that most of the people who accept the responsibility Stewart shirks, the actual politicians and pundits, are also rarely trying to sway anyone; even if this is more damning on their part, though, it still leaves our Jon as one more media figure, mired in the same mud, not such a gleaming champion.

Stewart will forever be the standard to which everyone that comes after is compared

If we aren’t going to enshrine him in the pantheon of political heroes, though, we can find comparisons for Stewart that at least shouldn’t make him, or his partisans, blush. The name that springs most readily to mind is Johnny Carson. Like him, Stewart crystallized a nascent genre of programming, and his shadow will loom large over everyone else who comes along to chip at its edges. Like Carson, Stewart leaves a healthy stable of not just imitators but acolytes, people who he groomed to carry his particular torch, and who share a lot of his blind spots. Even like Carson, Stewart’s most obvious, arguably surpassing successor has gone on to a whole other network, and his replacement has caused no small amount of handwringing. Jon Stewart is going to leave a hole in late night, and will forever be the standard to which everyone that comes after is compared.

Whatever Stewart’s other inconsistencies, that is an incredible legacy for an entertainer, and something that no amount of histrionic naysaying his right-wing detractors can credibly tarnish. You have to wonder, though, if an entertainer’s legacy is really the one that our Jon wanted to leave.

A town in northern Italy has proven its Foo Fighter fandom is bigger than any other by rallying together one thousand musically deft diehards for a simultaneous performance of the band’s “Learn to Fly”.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JozAmXo2bDE&w=640&h=390]

The video, which surfaced Thursday, was an attempt to lure the internationally beloved band to Cesena, Italy, and it worked. On Friday, Dave Grohl posted a video online announcing, in Italian, that the Foo Fighters were coming to Cesena.

“Hello Cesena, I’m David, hi, and I’m sorry, I can’t speak Italian, just a little, just a little bit. This video.. beautiful, really beautiful! Thank you so much. We are coming, I promise. See you soon! Thank you very much, love you, bye.”

Grohl didn’t say when that promised show will happen, but it will likely be an added stop on the band’s European tour later this year.

Jon Stewart gave us a sneak peek at next week’s Daily Show comedian-packed lineup as he heads into his last episodes ever as host.

Thursday night on the show, Stewart announced that Amy Schumer, Louis CK and Denis Leary are scheduled to appear separately in three of the episodes.

Stewart said earlier this week that his buddies C.K. and Leary are among his favourite guests because, “I get to not work (and) f—k around with them for five minutes,” he said in a Twitter Q&A with his correspondents Hasan Minaj and Jordan Klepper.

Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson has come to the defence of his friend and fellow wrestling legend Hulk Hogan.

“I’ve known [Hulk Hogan] for a lot of years. My dad helped train him in Florida in the ’70s when he was breaking into the business. My uncles helped train him as well. So I’d not known him to be racist,” Johnson explained during a panel for his HBO show Ballers at the Television Critics Association meetings this week. “It’s funny, it’s one of those things where—I’m not justifying what he said—but we’ve all talked trash. Especially in private. He said what he said and now he’s paying the price.”

Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) was caught using racial epithets to then-lover Heather Clem in a leaked sex tape, leading to his dismissal from the WWE.

He is currently embroiled in a $100 million lawsuit with the website Gawker for allegedly leaking the tape.

Like all political autobiographies, the story of Thomas Mulcair’s journey to manhood — published under the title Strength of Conviction — is impossible to judge on solely literary terms.

Ever since U.S. president Barack Obama launched his political career with the memoir Dreams From My Father, books of this nature have become standard pre-campaign fare. It’s an affectation Canadians have adopted with considerable enthusiasm, most recently with Olivia Chow’s My Journey, and Justin Trudeau’s Common Ground. (One almost has to admire Stephen Harper for bucking the trend by offering a book about … the rise of professional hockey.)

So, Mulcair’s book isn’t really a book. It’s a 180-page cover letter. It’s an autobiography and a platform, a plea for consideration; it’s a life remembered in soft focus. The title is entirely appropriate.

Mulcair concedes no mistakes here. Gone is the caustic, even angry, Mulcair of reputation. The NDP leader — now surging in the polls and a plausible contender for Prime Minister — is always right. Every clash is chalked up to his unwillingness to bend in the face of inviolable principle.

His recounting of one of the dramatic of such disputes, the falling out with Quebec Primer Jean Charest, after being appointed to cabinet as minister of environment, is fuzzy, incomplete. He remembers the post fondly, and glosses over the details of its termination; Mulcair writes of the period without the self-awareness to give the reader a satisfying understanding. The minister was eventually called to Charest’s carpet and offered a lesser post; Mulcair refuses to be demoted — on principle, of course. He trundles over to the backbenches, instead, insinuating here that the fight centred around a controversial plan to transfer provincial park lands over to a developer.

The world is rarely so clear cut as this.

But that’s what Mulcair is selling: he positions himself here as the hero of an unambiguous narrative.
There is no grey, no nuance. There are good guys and there are bad guys. Mulcair is the willing avatar for the side wearing the white hats. There is little hint of the ego and ambition that must be present in any contender for Prime Minister.

During the length of the book — which takes us from early childhood to his current age of 60 — only one man merits Mulcair’s vitriol: Stephen Harper. Mulcair tries to make concessions to western Canada, even to the oil industry. But the Prime Minister or his policies are mentioned at least a dozen times.

Meanwhile, I could not find a single reference to Justin Trudeau. There are a few shots fired at the Liberal Party, generally, but Justin’s father, Pierre, shows up more often than the man who currently threatens Mulcair’s left flank.

Mulcair has also lived knee-deep in the trenches during two of the most fascinating episodes of Quebec’s modern political history, fighting on on the side of the federalists during the 1995 referendum, and being instrumental to the 2011 Orange Crush which vaulted the NDP to official opposition

Here it’s possible to divine a bit of the NDP’s coming election strategy. In short, the party needs to present the coming campaign as a straightforward fight between the left and the right, with the NDP the clear representatives of the left. The Conservatives, on the other hand, are depending on a continued split of the progressive vote.

Strength of Conviction also offers a degree of political inoculation. Mulcair brushes off the Conservatives’ attempts to woo him as an unserious consideration. He explains his dual citizenship; his wife is French and he didn’t like being split from his family in the passport line while on vacation. He would, of course, renounce his French passport if elected Prime Minister. Mulcair’s dual nationality is of no serious concern beyond the Conservatives’ ability to make it one.

As a book, in and of itself, there is much to praise in Strength of Conviction. It’s straightforward, clearly written, and easy to read. It’s intended for a broad, popular audience. Mulcair’s voice is apparent in the reading; the narrative is well paced. It doesn’t get bogged down in backroom tactics or strategy.

Mulcair has also lived knee-deep in the trenches during two of the most fascinating episodes of Quebec’s modern political history, fighting on on the side of the federalists during the 1995 referendum, and being instrumental to the 2011 Orange Crush which vaulted the NDP to official opposition — an unprecedented political wave that began in Quebec and may yet continue west and east.

The leader offers insight into the nature of Quebec politics, the underlying currents that he the NDP ably tapped. Even those who aren’t terribly politically inclined will find value here. And as long as one maintains awareness that this is an extensive piece of campaign literature, there’s something to be gleaned for the common voter, as well.

One walks away from the book feeling that Mulcair is a man with a keenly felt set of values, and a willingness, even a desire, to fight for what he believes to be right.

It’s easy to find comfort in the fact that such a man is serving as leader of the official opposition.
But Prime Minister?

J.J. Abrams was on The Daily Show Thursday night promoting his new film Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation (which he produced), but all Jon Stewart wanted to do was get any info about Abrams’ next directing effort, Star Wars: Episode VII — The Force Awakens.

“There was a hydraulic door that went down, he was pushed down, and his ankle went 90 degrees,” Abrams told Stewart.

The guy is like a real life superhero

The actor broke his ankle, and Abrams described to Stewart how he rushed to Ford’s aid.

“I’m trying to lift him up, because that’s the kind of guy I am,” he said. “I’m trying to lift this door and I hear a pop [in my back] and I go, ‘Oh, that’s weird.’ So I go to the doctor a couple of days later and he goes, ‘Oh, you have a broken back.'”

The doctor informed Abrams that he had broken his L4 in his spine. But the director continued working on Star Wars.

“A few months later I’m still wearing this really silly back brace under my shirt, nobody knows, I didn’t tell anybody. Harrison Ford from across the stage sprints to me faster than I will ever run, and he’s like ‘Hey, J.J.!'”

Abrams said of Ford, “The guy is like a real life superhero.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/movies/j-j-abrams-broke-his-back-trying-to-save-harrison-ford-from-malfunctioning-millennium-falcon-door/feed0stdJJ Abrams on the Daily Show Thursday.What it was like to watch Wet Hot American Summer become a hithttp://news.nationalpost.com/arts/television/what-it-was-like-to-watch-wet-hot-american-summer-become-a-hit
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/television/what-it-was-like-to-watch-wet-hot-american-summer-become-a-hit#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 16:39:20 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=845613

When Wet Hot American Summer disappointingly shuffled out of theatres in 2001, no one would have guessed there would be a follow-up — much less that it would become one of the mostly hotly anticipated shows of the summer, with a cast of some of the biggest stars on the planet, almost 15 years later.

Here, movie/show creators David Wain and Michael Showalter explain what it was like to watch their pet project go from box office flop to a hit with such a fervent cult some people choose their friends based on it.

The rivalry between Hulk Hogan and Gawker is heating up with Hogan filing an emergency motion Thursday night blaming the gossip site for leaking an audio clip of the now banished WWE champion on a racist rant, the New York Post reported.

The National Enquirer first published a transcript of the rant last week in the wake of Hogan’s $100 million lawsuit against Gawker for circulating a sex tape of him and his then-best friend’s then-wife.

In the motion filed Thursday, Hogan (real name Terry Bollea) alleges that Gawker is also responsible for the latest leak in an attempt to damage his case against them and ruin his 38-year career.

The motion notes that several tapes were discovered while investigating the sex tape case, but were all deemed inadmissible as evidence.

“Thus, the only value Gawker defendants could squeeze out of the materials provided by the United States government was if these materials went public — and in the process publicly destroyed Mr. Bollea,” the motion says.

It also alleges that Gawker targeted Hogan to distract from their public-relations nightmare after the publication outed a married magazine executive who offered to pay a gay male escort for sex. “(A) ‘civil war’ erupted which included the resignations of the executive editor … and the editor-in-chief of Gawker.com.”

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Gawker maintains it had nothing to do with racist rant leak. “Hulk Hogan has only one person to blame for what he said and no one from Gawker had any role in leaking that information,” Heather Dietrick, President and General Counsel of Gawker said in a statement.

While Hulk Hogan made a swift apology for the rant, he later began retweeting messages heralding is innocence, including this false comparison from someone with the Twitter handle @WolfsheadOnline:

“Bi-racial President Obama uses N word, is applauded and keeps his job. @HulkHogan uses N word, is vilified and loses his job.”

A hearing in Florida state court for the motion Hogan filed Thursday is scheduled for Friday.

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/hulk-hogan-blames-gawker-for-leaking-racist-rant/feed1stdHBO says Game of Thrones will run for at least 8 seasonshttp://news.nationalpost.com/arts/hbo-says-game-of-thrones-will-run-for-at-least-8-seasons
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/hbo-says-game-of-thrones-will-run-for-at-least-8-seasons#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 16:04:52 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=846304

All men must die but Game of Thrones gets to live longer than expected.

HBO president Michael Lombardo revealed the flagship series is returning for not one, not two, but at least three more seasons.

The popular assumption has long been that the series would end after seven seasons. But, as Lombardo told the Television Critics Association meeting Thursday, “Seven-seasons-and-out has never been the conversation. The question is how much beyond seven are we going to do.”

Lombardo added that “(Showrunners David Benioff and Dan Weiss) feel like there’s two more years after six. I would always love for them to change their minds, but that’s what we’re looking at right now.”

Presumably, shooting beyond seven seasons would see the show diverge way off from the books, which has already started happening. That doesn’t seem to concern the network or author George R.R. Martin, however, and Lombardo suggested an off-book television prequel is not off the table.

“I would be open to anything that Dan and David wanted to do—about Game of Thrones, or any subject matter,” he said. “It really would depend fully on what they wanted to do. I think you’re right, there’s enormous storytelling to be mined in a prequel, if George (R.R. Martin) and Dan and David decide they want to tackle that.”

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HBO is currently shooting the sixth season, and everything beyond that is still up in the air, despite Lombardo’s enthusiasm for more GOT.

One thing he did confirm, though, was that Jon Snow’s hotly debated death did in fact mark his demise. “Dead is dead as dead as dead. He be dead. Yes. Everything I’ve seen, heard, read, Jon Snow is indeed dead,” he said.

SEATTLE — Kurt Cobain’s widow and daughter are urging a Seattle judge not to release death-scene photos and records that a lawsuit claims will prove the Nirvana frontman was murdered more than 20 years ago.

John Shearer/Invision/AP, FileFrances Bean Cobain, left, and Courtney Love attend the LA Premiere of "Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck" at The Egyptian Theatre in Los Angeles April 21, 2015.

Superior Court Judge Theresa Doyle is set to hear arguments Friday over whether to proceed with a trial after Richard Lee, who runs a Seattle public access TV show, sued the city and the Seattle Police Department for the material he says will show Cobain didn’t die of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in 1994, The Seattle Times reported.

The city is arguing that the material should stay sealed for the sake of the family’s privacy. Cobain’s widow, rocker and actress Courtney Love, and their daughter have written to the court about the physical and psychological impact that the release of the graphic photos would have on their lives.

“I have had to cope with many personal issues because of my father’s death. Coping with even the possibility that those photographs could be made public is very difficult,” Frances Bean Cobain wrote. “Further sensationalizing it through the release of these pictures would cause us indescribable pain.”

She wrote that she already faces harassment from fans “obsessed” with her father and fears that could get worse.

In 1995, Love got court permission to keep Cobain’s suicide note, and another note used for handwriting analysis, out of the public eye.

Seattle police did release two previously unseen images from the suicide scene last year. One showed a box containing drug paraphernalia, a spoon and what look like needles on the floor next to half a cigarette and sunglasses. The other showed the paraphernalia box closed, next to cash, a cigarette pack and a wallet that appeared to show Cobain’s identification.

AP Photo/seattlepi.com, Jordan Stead, FileThe home where Nirvana band member, Kurt Cobain, died in 1994 at Viretta Park in Seattle, Wash.

In March of 1972, Led Zeppelin’s Jimmy Page and Robert Plant spun a failed attempt to enter Singapore (they were denied entry due to their long hair) into musical silk. Rerouting to India, the duo made arrangements to rerecord Led Zeppelin’s far-east inspired “Friends” with a group of classical musicians. Though the musicians had never heard of Led Zeppelin, Page was so pleased with the recordings, done at EMI Studios at Pherozeshah Mehta Road in Mumbai (then Bombay), that he encouraged the musicians to record Zeppelin track “Four Sticks” without accompaniment from the visiting Englishmen.

Forty-three years later, the tracks, recorded on Page’s own custom Stellavox recording device but deemed not up to Page’s perfectionist standards at the time, are finally getting an official release this week as part of the Page-headed Led Zeppelin reissue series. We asked the guitarist and producer to describe his recollections of the recordings.

The Bombay Orchestra [recordings] are the result of a visit to Bombay. I requested the musicians: a violinist, two percussionists, a ashehnai player and a sarangi player. It all sounds rather exotic, doesn’t it? But it’s all the instruments I’d heard in Indian music and I’d really acquainted with.

The musicians that perform on this are really the equivalent of Bollywood musicians. They did the film music and the film music was the pop music of the day in India. So I wanted to kick off with “Friends” because it’s something that, when I wrote that for the third album, I had Indian overtones in my head about it. I wanted to see if I went in with musicians, you book them in because they’re classical musicians trained classically; hadn’t heard Led Zeppelin, that’s for sure and I wasn’t going to play them any Led Zeppelin. I was going to go in with these musicians, with the acoustic guitar and say ‘Gentlemen, it goes like this…’

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZ2rDQtB34s&w=640&h=390]

It was an incredible experiment. Robert was there with me and he sings on two takes of “Friends” and then we’ve got it! And I’ve accomplished something which I’d thought was possible but I wasn’t sure I’ve be able to pull off. I managed to take these classically trained musicians, I managed to have a communion with them and I managed to get this one track. Now I don’t want to let this whole thing go so I try for the equivalent of “Four Sticks” teaching them via the guitar. I don’t play the guitar on the version that’s on the Coda reissue.

Woody Allen has described his relationship with wife (and former step-daughter) Soon-Yi Previn as “paternal.”

The Annie Hall director bore all his usual neuroses and self-deprecations in a rare and revealing NPR interview with Sam Fragoso earlier this week.

During the conversation, Allen, whose new flick Irrational Man is suffering weak numbers at the box office, paints himself as a “middle-class” man who leads “ a very sensible life.” He spoke openly about making movies, his lack of curiosity, specifically about drugs (“I can barely bring myself to take two Extra Strength Excedrin.”), and therapy. While all that was odd, it was no surprise coming from Allen.

But things got strange, even by Woody Allen standards, when the 79-year-old started talking about his much, much younger wife, whom he started seeing while in a relationship with her mother, Mia Farrow. While Allen is a firm believer that “love fades,” he says his marriage is special. Why? Because of the massive age gap, and specifically because he was “paternal” as Soon-Yi “deferred to” him.

“I lucked out in my last relationship,” he told Fragoso. “I’ve been married now for 20 years and it’s been good. I think that was probably the odd factor that I’m so much older than the girl I married. I’m 35 years older, and somehow, through no fault of mine or hers, the dynamic worked. I was paternal. She responded to someone paternal. I liked her youth and energy. She deferred to me, and I was happy to give her an enormous amount of decision-making just as a gift and let her take charge of so many things. She flourished. It was just a good luck thing.”

That all starkly contrasts what the couple said repeatedly to the press back in the 90’s. In a Time article, Previn assured that, “To think that Woody was in any way a father or stepfather to me is laughable.” And Allen told Vanity Fair “She’s probably more mature than I am.”

After taking full credit for how Previn “flourished,” Allen addressed whether the recently resurfaced allegations that he sexually abused his adopted daughter Dylan Farrow affected his viewership. “I would say no,” says Allen. He also adds that the speculation has “no meaning in the way I make movies, too. I never see any evidence of anything in my private life resonating in film.”

]]>http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/woody-allen-claims-he-has-paternal-relationship-with-wife-soon-yi-previn/feed0stdwoody-allenJimmy Page reflects on the end of Led Zeppelin and losing ‘bosom buddy’ John Bonhamhttp://news.nationalpost.com/arts/music/jimmy-page-reflects-on-the-end-of-led-zeppelin-and-losing-bosom-buddy-john-bonham
http://news.nationalpost.com/arts/music/jimmy-page-reflects-on-the-end-of-led-zeppelin-and-losing-bosom-buddy-john-bonham#commentsFri, 31 Jul 2015 13:23:50 +0000http://news.nationalpost.com/?p=844167

“I’d lost a bosom buddy and comrade,” says Jimmy Page, staring through the eager interviewer before him, towards the stage at Toronto’s Masonic Temple — where he performed as both a member of The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin nearly half a century ago. And, for the first time in our 40 minute interview, the 71-year-old high priest of rock is lost for words.

He’s thinking, of course, of John Bonham, the thunderous war machine backbone of Zeppelin whose death in 1980 stopped arguably the most influential and inarguably most monumental group in music history in its tracks, dissolving them instantly. “I was just so aware of the loss to his family and the world of music in general,” he stammers before conceding, “If it had been me who went I don’t think they’d been able to replace me either.”

Page’s unease with personal matters isn’t out of character. Even in his time as Zeppelin’s bandleader and rock’s mystical bête noir, he despised interviews. But as he puts to bed what he calls the “Herculean labour” of remastering the wealth of unreleased Zeppelin studio material for a series of lovingly crafted box sets – the final three of which are out this Friday – he can taste the finish line of a love labour’s lost. “In effect, what it does is it doubles the amount of studio output,” he boasts. “I knew it was the right thing to do. So many pieces of music that have come out people didn’t know existed. Sometimes not even the rest of the band. They’d forgotten to be honest with you.”

He pauses, considering his next words carefully so as to not dig deeper into the chasm that exists between himself and another former comrade, singer Robert Plant, who refuses to tour a reunited Led Zeppelin (a subject interviewers were warned was off the table). “I’m just telling you the truth on that.”

So many pieces of music that have come out people didn’t know existed, sometimes not even the rest of the band

A session musician responsible for guitar parts in everything from Bond theme “Goldfinger” to Donavan’s “Sunshine Superman” and even The Who’s “I Can’t Explain,” Page set the path for Zeppelin when he was drafted to succeed Jeff Beck in The Yardbirds (himself a successor to Page pal Eric Clapton). When that group fell apart in 1968, Page was forced to put together a line-up to fulfil live commitments in Scandinavia. Drafting in a trio of the best musical musicians he could find, Page convened the New Yardbirds as a musical supergroup before changing the name to Led Zeppelin in honour of a previous failed supergroup attempt with Who drummer Keith Moon.

Despite having no experience, Page also took on production duties to avoid repeating the mistakes he witnessed in the Yardbirds. “Having to do these awful singles was really soul destroying for the Yardbirds. I didn’t want to fall into the trap,” he recalls. “So when I formed Led Zeppelin I wanted to be the producer because I didn’t want anyone getting in the way.”

“I’m not being arrogant,” he explains, pressing his lips together. “When you’ve got a band like that you need to be able to charge it through. And I’m saying that with the materiel that was being put forward for each album so there was a definite change to it, they weren’t necessarily doing that, were they? You need somebody who’s got their hand on the wheel of the ship.”

Tyler Anderson / National Post'If it'd had been me who went I don't think they'd been able to replace me either'

Page recalls taking to the job with OCD-like dedication, setting out a masterplan to create a harmonious musical interlocking which would showcase his evolving approach to the guitar – taking in a wide variety of styles from the avant-garde to the eastern scales and American blues riffs — without sacrificing its commercial appeal.

“I wanted to build a group [who could make] a guitar album but not at the expense of anybody else. That’s the difference between us and every other other band,” he says. “It was built around the drums so you’ve got a stereo picture of the drums and the things that are built on it.”

Much of this studio experimentation can be heard in the unearthed material, which includes early mixes of many of Zeppelin’s legendary catalogue, including a bass groove heavy “When The Levee Breaks,” an alternative mix of “Stairway To Heaven” and an early pass on Page’s favourite, “Whole Lotta Love.”

“The versions on the studio album are the definitive versions, but that doesn’t take away anything from these other, stripped down versions,” he points out. “‘’Whole Lotta Love’ just came out like a voodoo child! I wanted to have a riff that was so iconic that every time people heard it, it would fill them with joy. It would put a smile on their face. Even all these years later that’s still what it does. A riff has the power to do that.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6q4PpfcPnY&w=640&h=390]

In 1982, Led Zeppelin released their posthumous album Coda, a collection of career-spanning outtakes released to fill a contractual obligation. Recalling those two years after Bonham’s passing, Page says he couldn’t even pick up a guitar. “Coda, under the circumstances….that was the most difficult album for me to do. It wasn’t possible or feasible to continue with a new drummer. And there wasn’t a drummer who could have possibly fit in and fly with the rest of us.”

For the album’s accompanying reissue, Page hoped to bring a more positive energy to the bookend, rounding up his favourite rare Zeppelin material including a peppy outtake from the first album called “Sugar Momma” and two songs he and Plant recorded in India with a Bollywood orchestra.

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In totality, the box sets will be a final documentation of what was and what will never be again; a definitive bow he can now put behind him to focus on a new “guitar project” he intends to begin in earnest. Still, the mind can’t help wondering what could have been had he not lost his brother in arms.

“There would have been another album after (final studio release) In Through The Outdoor. For sure,” he says. “John Bonham and I had spoken about what we would do next. I was keen to move it back into riffs but not the obvious. If you listen to ‘Bonzo’s Montreux’ you can hear how he likes to play so it was clear what we’d do. I just have a good collection of riffs and then kick it off.”

I may be alone here, but I actually have fond memories of the McLobster. It was 1991, perhaps, and my whole family — two parents, three brothers and me — are squeezed into a blue Aerostar. We’re on an annual family road trip, this time to the East Coast, and Roger Whittaker plays on a loop. I’m eight-ish, prone to carsickness and boredom, but if we all behave for once, there is a rare and much-anticipated trip to McDonald’s in our future. More specifically, there is the fast-food chain’s newest menu addition: the McLobster.

The memory ends right there, however, and today I have nothing but questions: Is the McLobster really as good-behaviour-worthy delicious as I remember? If so, after its much hyped early-’90s debut, why did the McLobster disappear into lore and obscurity? And how is fast-food lobster — a confusing oxymoronic combo if there ever was one — possibly back on takeout trays? And how long can the madness last?

Like the seafood equivalent of a song of the summer, lobsters suddenly seem everywhere. It’s lobster hour while supplies last at McDonald’s, as part its “Great Canadian Taste Adventure” — the first time that sandwich has graced the chain’s counters nationally since sticking its toe into the Ontario market in 2013 (to less-than-steller reviews). Subway’s lobster offering, imported to Canada last year, can’t be missed in their stores now, where big posters herald “the Atlantic Canada lobster sub is back.” The lobster frenzy is not restricted to strictly fast food — the Keg, for its part, is celebrating its annual “Lobster Summer.”

Just a century and a half ago, lobster was considered a disgusting bottom feeder

Lobster has been suddenly so abundant largely because, well, lobster has been suddenly so abundant. Canada produced 84,000 tonnes last year, making it both our most valuable seafood export and this country the No. 1 supplier of the stuff worldwide. And these numbers, overall, have been increasing.

The result: Lobsters are crawling out of fine dining establishments and into fast-food joints on every corner, served in convenient “roll” form. The recipe is simple: lobster chucks plus mayonnaise plus lemon, wrapped in a buttery bun, conveniently wrapped to go. It’s not a bad comeback for “the cockroach of the sea” once reserved for the poor and the imprisoned.

Just a century and a half ago, lobster — from the Old English loppestre, meaning “spider” — was considered a disgusting bottom feeder. It was sold in cans, not unlike Spam, for 11 cents a pound (baked beans went for 53 cents), and doubled as cat food. It was a basic supply-and-demand scenario: lobster along Boston’s seashore was so plentiful you could capture them by hand, and storms brought so many of the arthropods ashore that they’d be ground into fertilizer.

But lobster’s fortune changed as railways spread across North America. By the turn of the century, mid-land passengers, who were blissfully unaware of its awful reputation, were served the creature as an exotic new delicacy. Lobster was easily obtained en route and plentiful, plus chefs discovered the public would gobble it up with a side of melted butter.

Everyone had a taste during the Depression and Second World War, when lobster prices fell with all the rest and, since lobster wasn’t rationed during the war like beef and pork, it became an easy way to get your protein. By the 1950s, lobster prices up again, Hollywood and the Rockefellers were serving it at society parties, and the nouveau riche at home followed suit. Lobster proved the ultimate social climber.

Back in this century, conditions were set for a resurgence again in 2012, when, without explanation, and with fewer traps in the ocean, the lobster harvest jumped from 104 to 127 million pounds. Fishermen suspect the food chain’s outta whack — predator fish such as cod, pollock and haddock having their populations slashed by overfishing. Scientists also point to climate change, which warmed waters, triggering early lobster growth.

Whatever the causes, dockside lobster prices plummeted to $2.77 a pound — the lowest since 1939. Cue a few seasons of lobster poutine, tacos and grilled cheeses. Prices have since risen; a fresh 2015 lobster from Atlantic Canada now costs about $5 a pound — and climbing — so their foray onto fast food menus may not be destined to last. I must test my inner child’s memory of McLobster now, or perhaps never.

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Or maybe I’ll work up to it. With an open mind and a cautious stomach, I start at Subway, where a $14 sandwich can make even the most optimistic lobster lover skeptical. “You’re really getting that?” asks the woman behind me, her face a mixed salad of confusion and curiosity. Fast-food lobster is a foreign concept for many of us, and more traditional ways of imbibing run deep. And while Subway maintains its lobster is popular in Atlantic Canada, here in-land, even my sandwich artist isn’t convinced of his work, suggesting I lather my minuscule lobster portion with a healthy squirt of sub sauce. I agree, but it does not help.

At McDonald’s, a lineup of patrons curves around the soda fountain and out the door, but the McLobster is not a popular order. “We got any lobster left in the back?” calls the woman at the counter, an ominous sign if I’ve ever heard one. It’s a bit of a hunt, but for just $7.49 — or make that a meal for $9 — the roll is mine.

“I thought it would look more like it was squeezed from a tube,” says my friend Jessica, a new mom who rightfully deserves home-cooked lasagna from me, but is politely letting the Mickie Dee’s slide. “It doesn’t look bad,” she says, semi-confidently. We take two big bites and are equal parts surprised and relieved; though Twitter was distinctly #notlovinit, my McLobster is neither delicious nor, as some called it, “McNasty.” I give this takeout lobster one enthusiastic thumb up and one childish thumb down.

It does demand a crustaceous palate cleanser, however, so I seek out Market Street Catch across from Toronto’s St. Lawrence Market. Here, I eat the only truly satisfying roll of my lobster adventure ($17). It’s a cold, calorie-laden truth, served on a heaping salad with balsamic vinaigrette. It is fresh and scrumptious and I want two more as I sit barefoot down by the pier. This is how lobster should be, but it’s not fast food.